y the estimate both
favorably and unfavorably. There is, for instance, a limit to the amount
of seasoned lumber available in this country of the peculiar type and
quality needed for airplane construction. Provision must be made for the
future in this respect. All-steel machines have been made and used in
Europe to some extent, but no metal alloy has been developed which is
likely to take the place of wood in general construction. The
manufacturers developed some interesting things along these lines which
were not given to the public.

In the Spring of 1917 the fighting in the air took on an entirely new
interest abroad, because of the German policy of painting their machines
most grotesque patterns. They seemed to have taken this idea from the
old American Indian custom of painting their faces to frighten their
opponents, or else the fancies of the German airmen were allowed to run
riot with vivid color effects.

British pilots daily brought home from over the lines new reports of
fantastic creations encountered amid the clouds. The gayest feathered
songsters that came north with the Spring did not rival the variegated
hues of the harlequin birds that rose daily from the German airdromes.
The coming of this fantastic order of things in the air was first
heralded by a squadron of scarlet German planes. It then was noticed
that some of the enemy machines were striped about the body like
yellowjackets.

GAUDY TASTES OF AIRMEN.

Nothing appeared too gaudy to meet the tastes of the enemy airmen, who
seemed to have been given carte blanche with the paint brush. There were
green planes with yellow noses, silver planes with gold noses,
khaki-colored planes with greenish-gray wings, planes with red bodies,
green wings and yellow stripes, planes with red bodies and wings of
green on top of blue, planes with light blue bodies and red wings.
Virtually all the gaudiest machines were in red body effects, with every
possible combination of colors for their wings. Some had one green wing
and one white; some had green wings tipped with various colors.

One of the most fantastic met had a scarlet body, brown tail and
reddish-brown wings, with white maltese crosses against a bright green
background. One machine looked like a pear flying through the air. It
had a pear-shaped tail and was painted a ruddy brown, just like a large
ripe fruit. One of the piebald squadrons encountered was made up of
white, red and green machines. There